


A thousand other boys could never reach you (How could I have been the one?)

by KeepGoing



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Darkness, Derek Comes Back, Derek is better, Derek is zen, Falling In Love, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post Season 5, Stiles POV, derek helps with the darkness, stiles is losing his mind again, unrequited feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-29 01:06:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6352801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeepGoing/pseuds/KeepGoing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Stiles didn't expect Derek to come back. The frantic voicemail Stiles had left for Derek a few weeks back was a moment of weakness. His hands trembled, from fear and bitter cold, as he pressed Derek’s name on his screen and shivered with relief and disappointment when his call went straight to a generic recording telling Stiles that the party he had called was not available. It made him realize in that second that Derek was never really available. Not when he was in Beacon Hills, and not then. Derek owed them nothing. But he had to try. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	A thousand other boys could never reach you (How could I have been the one?)

  
  
  
The loft door slides shut with a clang, a sound they have both heard so many times before. But with the thickness in the air; the change in the atmosphere makes the vibration one of the most terrifying and anticipated sounds in this moment. 

Blood still drips from Derek’s fingertips and Stiles has dirt underneath his fingernails and the two of them together scream disaster in deafening silence. But there is a soft melody between them; a song both have been too terrified to dance to for years now. But this last battle...this last struggle...this last war has taken a toll on two souls just too tired of fighting anymore. Fighting their own demons and looking out for them in the other. The need to protect; to shield the other from harm is now so transparent. 

“We should get you cleaned up.” Derek’s voice is rough; cut up like his body and heart. 

Stiles can only nod; always unable to find words when he’s standing in front of Derek like this. Wounded. Marked. Open. 

Derek’s hands are gentle which confuses Stiles in a thousand different ways when he’s seen with own eyes the destruction they can cause. They kill. Wound. Destroy. But right now they heal. They heal things in Stiles he didn’t even know were broken. His insides are bruised. But Derek isn't just cleaning the cuts on his face. He’s alleviating the constant ache Stiles has felt within his chest; on his insides; for years now. Since his mother died. It's unsettling. 

Derek’s hands are becoming like a craving for him. Like an itch right below the surface. He yearns for the warmth of Derek’s hands; hands that have killed. Hands that have torn things apart. Just like he’s tearing Stiles apart right now. With his indecisive movements. His careful and hesitant brushes of fingers over Stiles face. The way his lips are parted in the most innocent yet deviant of ways. How green his eyes look in this ghastly lighting. And how they dart between Stiles’ own eyes, his wound and every now and then, his mouth. 

“Derek…” Stiles breathes out and he watches as Derek’s Adam’s apple bobs up and down as he swallows down words and emotions Stiles knows Derek is forcing himself to keep rooted deep inside himself. 

“You’re gonna be okay…” Derek chokes out, his hands beginning to tremble as he finishes tending to the gash across Stiles’ cheek. 

“Are you?”

Stiles didn't expect Derek to come back. The frantic voicemail Stiles had left for Derek a few weeks back was a moment of weakness. His hands trembled, from fear and bitter cold, as he pressed Derek’s name on his screen and shivered with relief and disappointment when his call went straight to a generic recording telling Stiles that the party he had called was not available. It made him realize in that second that Derek was never really available. Not when he was in Beacon Hills, and not then. Derek owed them nothing. But he had to try. 

Stiles stayed in that ditch all night, hiding. Scott and his Dad finally finding him as the sun came up, almost hypothermic, and he was told he was muttering Derek’s name as they practically carried him to the sheriff's cruiser. 

It wasn't Stiles’ call that made Derek come back to Beacon Hills. 

It was his Dad’s. 

See Stiles wasn't hiding from anything that night. Only himself. And the things that he thought had faded away into the light when the Nogitsune was killed, have flooded back darker and deeper than before. His life had become a constant coil of 2 colors. Black and red. Darkness and blood. 

And Stiles had finally lost his mind. 

And that's when Derek came back.After a desperate phone call from the sheriff begging him to help his son. 

Because if anyone understood the darkness its Derek. 

That was a little over 3 weeks ago. Derek, in his natural hero status, helped Scott and the rest of the pack defeat that thing that the Dread Doctors had been keeping alive all this time behind a glass prison. And even though he was warned, threatened to sit this one out, Stiles didn't listen in pure Stilinski fashion. 

And everything turned red and black again. 

“I’m fine, Stiles,” Derek assures him. He tosses the bloody towel onto the long wooden table Stiles remembers researching over what seems like centuries ago. Derek blinks a few times and licks his chapped lips. Derek’s beard has gotten longer; a bit unruly. His hair is longer too, shaggy on the back of his neck. Soft too; Stiles knows because his fingers fisted themselves in it as Derek carried him away from the blood and darkness tonight. 

It had only been a fraction of an hour ago, but the moment feels so far away from Stiles. As if points in time, no matter when they occurred, are slipping through Stiles’ brain faster than they actually happen. 

“I can’t remember.” Stiles whispers.

Derek furrows his brow. “Remember what?”

Stiles closes his eyes, even the darkness starting to hurt them. “Why I hated you. Why you hated me. Why you left.”

Derek sits back against the old wooden chair and his boots make a sound on the concrete floor that Stiles didn't even know he missed until he heard it. This place echoes with noises of memories that Stiles isn't sure Derek can hear even with his advanced senses. 

“I don't hate you. I never did. I was just very angry…” Derek rubs the palms of his hands over his face. “And to be honest, I don't think you ever did really hate me. You tried. But you never could.”

“Everythings different.”

Derek nods. “I know.”

“What am I supposed to do now?”

Derek’s eyes challenge Stiles’. “You know what you need to do.”

“It helped?”

“Do I seem different?”

Stiles swallows. “I don't know. I don't remember. I just know...I can just feel stuff.”

“And how do you feel?”

Stiles limbs begin to quiver. A vibration that occurs every now and then and he’s been wondering now for a while if he’s on some sort of different frequency than everyone else. Like supernatural beings. He didn't know what he was. Who he was. 

“Different too.”

“You are.” Derek agrees, folding his arms across his chest. Some things never change. 

“In a bad way?”

Derek’s eyes soften if that's even possible because the second Stiles saw Derek again it was the first thing he remembered. How cold and distant Derek’s eyes used to be. The pain behind them. Now, the way the look at Stiles, makes a warmth invade Stiles insides. Stiles has been cold for a while now, but Derek brings the warmth. 

“You’re stronger. More brave, which is weird because you were always so brave. But your innocence is gone. That last speck of your wonder is gone. It's like you’ve seen it all, at least, all the garbage, and the spark behind your eyes is gone. But it makes you tougher.” Derek pauses, his face paling white. “You turned into me. Which was the last thing I ever wished for you.”

Stiles' eyes slide shut with exhaustion and realization. “Help me.”

“I’m trying.” Stiles hears the chair creek and then Derek’s long rough fingers tugging at Stiles’ in his lap. “But I can't stay here. I’ll end up right back where I started.”

“Why me?”

Stiles’ hears a huff of laughter. “Fuck, Stiles. It's always been you, don’t you see that?”

Stiles’ eyes flicker open and there are Derek’s eyes again. It makes Stiles wheeze and he needs to look away because it's too light; too bright; and Stiles has grown accustomed to darkness.

“Maybe I had to go to become the kind of person who could help you. Like you helped me.”

“I didn't do anything.”

“You did more than you know. More than anyone.” Derek bows in front of him; balancing himself on the balls of his feet and whispers his fingers under Stiles’ chin to force him to look into the light. “Let me return the favor.”

“What if it doesn't work?”

“I’ll spend forever trying.”

“You don't want this,” Stiles argues shaking his head, the voices bouncing in his head telling him he belongs in the black. 

“You have no idea what I want.” Derek snarks back but quickly cringes at his sudden transformation back to the old Derek. “Stop worrying about what I want. You know what needs to be done for you to get better. It's your choice. I’m here. I’ve always been here...you see that. I came back here. Not for Scott, or Lydia. For you. So here I am, Stiles.” Derek lets his arms fall to his sides and he stands. Stiles hangs his head down instead of looking up into the light of Derek’s face. “So what are you gonna do?”

Stiles practically convulses as he cries, wrapping his arms around himself and pulling his knees up to his chest as he unleashes the monsters inside his head. Derek lets him cry for a while, as he wanders somewhere in the loft but suddenly Stiles is forced out of his chair and flung into the strong and warm arms of a once Alpha werewolf. But right now he’s just a man…

“Shhh. I told you. You’re gonna be okay. I promise.” Derek caresses the back of Stiles' head and Stiles can feel Derek’s lips against the shell of his ear. He trembles again, but for different reasons this time. His cheeks are starting to dry from the river of tears he has spilled. It's the first time Stiles has felt anything in months. 

Stiles nods in Derek’s arms and hums “Let’s go” against soft chest hair.  
  
*****~~~******  
  
The air is so soft and clean against Stiles’ face as the sun creeps up over the mountainside. He can hear the horses starting their morning a few yards away and he turns his squinted eyes toward the ranch. Tanned muscles flex and gleam in the new daylight and he smiles to himself at the new and fresh feelings he has inside himself. 

It's a peculiar feeling. It's a satisfying emotion to have the tingle under your skin from contentment instead of terror. He sees different colors now. Screaming colors that blind the darkness. He laughs. He smiles. He flails and talks and uses his sarcasm again. He’s been reawakened. He’s found himself again. Or maybe Derek just found him. He’s discovered things about himself; Derek teaching him simple things making him work and find peace in a small town where the silence you hear is beautiful instead of terrifying. 

The days are filled with labor and the reassurance from livestock animals that make Stiles feel like a real person again. The nights are filled with reading and the soft sound of the record player (he’s found a new love for vinyl albums). There is passion in the small cabin he lives in. Warmth, fervor, need, want. Derek makes him feel things he never thought he would be able to experience. Labored hands on pale skin and lips on every inch of his body. Derek whispers things to him in the dark which makes Stiles love it again. He tells Stiles how good he feels. How GOOD he is in general. And how he couldn't imagine his life without him now. 

Stiles thanks him for saving him. In so many ways. Derek just presses his nose into his jugular and murmurs how they saved each other. 

Stiles takes a sip of his cooling coffee and feels the tingle again when Derek turns toward the cabin, wiping the morning sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm. His green eyes glimmer in the sun and he smiles at him. And if the sun wasn't brazen enough, Derek’s smile; which Stiles can't believe he went so long without doing; could disturb his eyesight even more. He gives Derek a small wave and holds his coffee mug up in an offer. Derek nods and smiles again. 

Stiles puts the coffee in a travel mug and when he hands it to Derek, he brushes his fingers over his favorite horse, Batman, and gives Derek a shy smile. 

“I’m moving a little slow this morning. I’m sorry.”

Derek takes a long sip of his coffee and gives Stiles that soft look he’s grown so accustomed to. “You had a nightmare.”

Stiles nods. “Yeah. But that's all it was.”

Derek furrows his brow out toward the pig pens and brings his lips into his mouth. “I got this today. Why don't you finish that book you’ve been devouring?”

“Are you sure? I mean it's a lot of work…” 

Derek just sighs and tugs Stiles closer to him. “Stiles. You do a lot. You do enough. Relax. I’ll be done in a bit.”

Stiles kisses him, tasting the morning, sweat and a hint of kicked up dirt on Derek’s lips. Derek presses himself into the kiss, his longer fingers finding that spot underneath Stiles’ t-shirt on his hip that still makes him unsteady on his feet. And in his heart. Its flashes of time like this that makes it hard to remember his life before this. Before the feeling of being consumed by everything Derek is. And Derek is so much. 

He’s haunted. He’s complicated. He’s quiet. He’s peaceful. He’s flawed. Beautiful. Gentle. Kind. Possessive. He’s everything Stiles wants....but is terrified of losing. Stiles is afraid of getting lost in the life...in the bubble they have surrounded themselves with this past year. That one day he will wake up and the darkness will have seeped back into his skin and all of this would have been a special type of torture to dangle hope in front of him like a happy ending he was just never meant to have. 

But the thing that keeps him going; the thing that keeps himself rooted deep in his faith is that all the fears and nightmares that Stiles feels himself jerking awake from in the middle of the night, Derek feels too. They are both preyed upon by their own puzzle of demons that somehow they have figured out how to piece together so that he and Derek fit together perfectly. 

It works for them. 

It didn't come easy. And it didn't happen fast. For the first few months of being on the ranch with Derek, Stiles slept on the pull out sofa in their living room. He couldn't stand to be touched and he barely went outside. He slept during the day; the light being his only satisfaction. His only safe haven. At night, he sat up staring at the moon through the window and wondering how something so beautiful...perfect...could cause so much destruction. 

But then one night, as if a dam had broken inside him, Stiles realized just how much Derek was like the moon he was ruled by. And how much Derek had tried to help him. How bringing him here; to the place Derek himself had found his own peace after all he’d lost; meant more than Stiles realized. This was his safe place. And Derek trusted Stiles in it. He had always trusted Stiles. He was just too young, too stubborn, too blind to see it until now. 

Stiles climbed into Derek’s bed that night. Not for sex. Not even for a kiss. Just to feel Derek’s hot skin on his. To show Derek that he was still broken; he may always be; but that it was getting better. Because of him. Because Derek believed in him. 

Because Derek had saved him. Once again. 

Stiles never slept on the sofa again after that night. 

The touches, the kisses...the sex...that was all new to them. Derek never pushed and Stiles never pulled for it. It happened at such a beautiful pace that Stiles wishes he could explain it to other people so that they could see or feel one percent of just how perfectly he and Derek fell together. 

As as slowly as he and Derek fell in love, was just as slowly as Stiles began to sleep at night again instead of in the daylight. Derek was patient with that too. Stiles lying in his bed, wide awake, reading or just running his fingers lazily along Derek’s back. Derek told him it never bothered him. Just the feeling of having Stiles there with him make him sleep better than he ever has. Stiles eventually found his peace within Derek’s, making their collide into love that much more flawless. 

Derek pulls back, his hand lingering on Stiles’ hip a few seconds longer, just looking at him with those eyes and Stiles smiles shyly. 

“Why don't you go check in with your dad?” Derek whispers. Stiles nods, breaking the closeness between them. He begins to walk back to the cabin, his feet fascinating him as he kicks up dirt under them. He hears Derek say his name, not exactly calling out to him but just...saying it as if it just flows from his mouth out of need. Stiles turns to look behind him and Derek is just staring, holding his coffee and Stiles can see the words sitting edge of Derek’s lips. 

“I love you.” Stiles delivers first. Derek’s expression melts and he sighs with satisfaction. The timing was perfect, just like everything else between them, and Derek mouths the words back as if the warm summer morning wind would carry it to him.

And it does.


End file.
